Black Forest
by MysticHowler
Summary: A muggle walks into the Black Forest, meets a witch, and asks her to teach him magic. I know it isn't much yet. Give me some time, this is a work in progress, it will be under constant revision. SECOND CHAPTER IS TEMPORARY!
1. Default Chapter

I quietly crawl around in the blackness of the forest sneaking up on the witch; the thick underbrush does nothing to mask the sounds of my footsteps. A few feet ahead an orange glow flickers in the clearing. She has her back to me, her silhouette, shows the loose robes she always wears. She doesn't move, which is odd, normally she is dancing, that is when she is not teaching me magic.

"Nice try" she speaks, "I know you are back there"

Signing, I stand up, and cry out in pain. She turns around and looks at me…I think, I wasn't sure, I had stars in my eyes. That was all I could see.

"You know, I thought you were good at sneaking around, people who sneak around look up before they stand up."

After a few seconds of sitting on the damp earth I rely, "Yeah, but, where I am from, I don't have to worry about branches" I stand back up onto me feet, rubbing my head gingerly I added "Not to mention the underbrush in here doesn't help my stealth ness."

I stepped into the rest of the clearing, and went over to the makeshift tent I pitched, right before I sat down to get comfortable, she told me I had to go get water if I wanted to eat.

She watched him walk out of the clearing carrying a bucket grumbling, "Stupid muggle, complains about everything" "I HEARD THAT!" screamed a voice from the pitch black of the forest. A couple seconds later, a thud and a loud clang rang through the trees. A quiet "oof!" came through the trees. She grinned and yelled out; "You are supposed to keep your eyes OPEN!" She chuckles when a "Yeah yeah" comes from somewhere in the darkness.

Picking myself off the floor, I think to myself; "why in the hell can't SOME light filter to the floor? When I stroll out of the forest, I am going to look like an albino." I felt the creek before I saw it. In my negligence I didn't pay attention to the quiet trickling of the creek, and ended up stepping in it. I bend down to fill up my bucket, then a thought slammed into me like a brick wall. I turned on my heel and stormed back up the back and stomped back to camp.

She heard something stomping towards her and she burst out laughing. In between her bouts of laughter she managed to squeak out, "You fell for it!" After catching a glimpse of his furious face she laughed even harder making any further words unmanageable. She just wanted to tease him, he should have known that she was a witch and she could conjure water if she wanted. She watched him thump over to his makeshift tent and take off his books and socks, and pout. He is so cute! No wonder Kali loves him so much…I wish he was mine, not hers. Briefly she fantasized about what he looked like without his clothing. But quickly shook that thought out of her head knowing it was never going to happen, she just wasn't as pretty as Kali.

Only three of us live in the forest that I am aware of. Kali, Tawnee, and I. Kali is my fiancé, she is about 5'3" with brown hair that goes to her shoulder blades. She loves animals, just like I do, which is why we are able to live in the forest. I will get back to the forest and how we came to be living in here in a little bit. Tawnee is a few inches taller than Kali, with a pretty face. I on the other hand, am 5'10" with jet black hair, and hazel eyes. The three of us became friends instantly, mostly because of our sarcastic wit, and stubbornness.

Sean picked up his rifle and started dismantling it again. He constantly cleaned his rifle, sometimes cleaning it two or three times a day. For some reason he found peace in being able to take it apart and know what each individual piece does, and how it works in combination with other parts to complete it's purpose…to fire heavy metal projectiles at incredible speeds. It was the same thing with the other job he did, ran steam locomotives for a railroad. He gave up the second love of his life to learn how to do potions. Only a short while before, Sean would be found running steam trains through the black forest. The black forest was so strange it was considered haunted. It covered thousands of square miles, and seemed to live, and move of a daily basis.

Seven years previously a railroad company decided to build a rail line through the center of the forest hoping to get trains around the forest in one day, instead of the week it would normally take. The rail line got about twenty miles into the forest when laborers started disappearing. The railroad thought they just abandoned the work party and left. The company went bankrupt trying to keep enough laborers supplied to keep the line moving, but eventually sold the line, at least what had been completed. Company after company attempted to complete the line. Almost seven years after the construction began, it was completed, but at a cost of trillions of dollars and almost three million men. Most engineers were to afraid to drive trains on the line because of the stories, about trees moving, and wolves bigger than bears. Most of these stories were fake, but it still kept a strong fear in men. Those who were not afraid to drive the trains, did so, and made fortunes. Sean himself made well over a million dollars in one year of running trains through the forest. That was in his first year. He had been running trains since the railroad inception.

Seven years after the last spike was driven in to the road bed, the railroad was still going strong.

While running the trains through the forest he would occasionally get a glimpse of a flickering fire. One day, he claimed there was a problem with the locomotive and ran into the forest to see what the light was. She told him of a magical school called Hogwarts, were young wizards and witches learned the skills of using wands to make things do almost what ever they want. He was interested, but the steam whistle from his engine tore through the trees, he promised he would come back and ran to the engine. After a period of weeks he kept coming back. He learned that Tawnee was an outcast because of the way that a great number of wizards and witches treated muggles. When she left the wizarding world, she took with her, her most famed skill: Potions. She had created almost three thousand different potions widely used in the magical world. She said that she knew how to live in the forest so, one day she walked into the forest, and people thought that she was killed by the creatures that inhabited it. Nobody bothered to send a search party after her. Before he left to get back on the train she told him that the secret to living in the forest was to respect it, and what lived in it. She wouldn't go picking fights with the animals, and the animals left her alone. She figured that the men in the work parties would destroy parts of the forest, and that pissed off the creatures in the forest, which led them to kill the workers quite frequently. So she told him not to destroy plants or animals and he would be fine.

After a period of a few months Sean decided to quit working for the railroad, and learn what he could about making potions. Kali wanted to go with him. The next day, they set out into the forest on a flatcar, as a pair of hobos so they could easily hop off when they saw the light. That is how three people came to be living in the darkest and scariest of the forests.


	2. Kenna

Occasionally Sean can hear the low moan of one of the steam engines as it slowly rolls through the forest. If he is alone, he longs to be the one pulling the whistle cord, however, once he is with someone, he decides that being in the forest with two gorgeous women was a lot better. Sean walked straight through the camp on the way to watch the trains roll by, and didn't even go near is rifle, it had been almost six months since he and Kali jumped the train into the forest. He trusted the forest now, one of the first potions Tawnee taught him was a translation draught. It somehow altered something in his brain, so he could understand what animals were saying, and he could talk to them. After he took the potion he walked straight away from the camp in search of an animal. Now that he could talk to the creatures in the forest there was no need for the rifle. Or so he hoped.

The first animal he came across was a young lone female wolf, which had run away from the pack. Upon seeing him, the hungry wolf charged him down, just before he leaped at his throat he said, "STOP". The bitch sat on her haunches and slid a few feet and looked at him with a weary eye and responded; "How are you able to speak to me? Humans can't talk" Smirking Sean responded "What am I doing now then? I made a potion that enables me to be able to talk to animals. Why were you going to attack me? I haven't harmed anything." The wolf just sat there stunned. Not getting a response from the wolf he asked what it's name was. "K-K-Kenna" it stammered out. She seemed young to him, and he asked her again. "Why were you going to attack me? I haven't done anything to the forest" She was still very nervous but managed to mumble "I was hungry" Knowing what lack of food can do to an animal he had her follow him to the camp. He also thought that by feeding her, she might become loyal to him and his two female companions. She wasn't hungry after all, she was starving, another day or two, and she would have died from starvation. Her ribs were showing through her dull fur.

It was her hunger that drove her to attack Sean.

After a week of caring for Kenna she began to get better, and her coat became shiny again, and muscle developed under her fur. Just like Sean hoped, she became loyal to the three humans who cared for her. Later that week, Sean got up out of the camp, and told the two girls, and Kenna that he was going to watch trains for the day. Out of boredom they went with him. They walked for an hour, before Sean stopped walking and crawled alone the ground to a bush, beyond that, was the tracks, elevated five feet above the surrounding area by grey ballast. Kali and Tawnee crawled up on both of his sides, both of them lying a little closer than they needed to be, while Kenna sat on her haunches behind them. Quietly they talked while waiting for the sound of a train. Suddenly Sean told them to be quiet.

"I hear one" Sean whispered. Kenna cocked her head and said that she didn't hear anything, and she had a keen sense of hearing. But Sean said that he had worked with them for years, it was coming. A short minute later a steady bark became audible to everybody's ears and it started picking up volume, he told them to be still. It took the steam train almost five minutes to pull it's heavy train up the hill, and it chugged past them at a measly fifteen miles an hour, smoke belching from it's stack as it struggled to get through the forest. Kenna had a paw on his calf muscle, and he could feel it shaking, carefully he turned around and told her to calm down, but she had never seen anything like it before and panicked and ran in the direction of the camp. After the engine passed it took fifteen more minutes for the rest of the train to rumble by. Train after train thundered by, and the three of them sat there almost the entire evening watching them pass.

Before dusk when they starting getting hungry they left the tracks and headed to the camp to make something for dinner. While they were walking Sean turned to Tawnee and asked her if there was a potion that prevented a person from getting sick. "Obviously, there is probably a potion for just about anything you can imagine, you just have to know where to look. If you can't find it, then there is a spell." They entered the campsite and saw Kenna watching them, before she got up and stalked off. She ignored Sean's calls to her and kept walking. Sean turned to the others and with a confused looks asked "What has gotten into her?" Sitting down he watched Tawnee sitting next to the fire cooking a homemade pizza that she conjured up.

As we were finishing up I began to worry about Kenna. I told the other two that I was going to go out looking for her, and I wanted them to stay there. As I was walking to the edge of the clearing, I asked Tawnee if she knew of a fast potion that would permit me to see in the dark. She thought a minute, pulled out her wand and muttered something and suddenly the fire behind her became blinding. Squinting I quickly turned around and asked her how I can take it off. She told me, and I turned on my heel and headed into the forest.

"KEEEENNNNNAAAAAA!" I called for the millionth time. I lost count, my voice was starting to go hoarse from attempting to summon my un-tamed "pet" wolf. I have been searching for her for six or seven hours. The military pants I was wearing turned into shorts a few hours ago, from walking through some tough brush. I was tired, exhausted, I was very worried, I know Kali and Tawnee are worried about me, and it was going to be getting light out soon, which meant that I needed to have Tawnee take the spell off of me. I thought I felt eyes on my back and turned around to see what was behind me. I wasn't paying attention to where I was going and I tripped on a branch that had fallen. Almost instantly I heard the unmistakeable sound of an animal running. I knew I wouldn't be able to get up from my sprawled position on the ground so, I just waited for…the animal…whatever it is, to take a bite out of my ending my life. Instead I heard a whine. Opening my eyes I saw Kenna standing on the log looking down at me.

"Where in the hell have you been Kenna? I have been looking for ages for you." I furiously asked her, barely able to contain my rage. "I am sorry, those steel monsters scared me, I don't know why you would want to be around them. And when you didn't come after me I thought that you wanted me to leave you alone for good. So I sat at the camp and thought about what I should do. When you came into camp, I had already made my decision and I left." Painfully I sat down on the log that I tripped on, and asked her if she knew how to get back to camp. She nodded, and started walking along a path, I got up and followed her, wincing occasionally. By the time we were nearing camp, dawn was rapidly approaching, and it was starting to get difficult to see, and from my knees down were numb. "How much more Kenna? I had Tawnee put a charm on me, and I wont be able to see in a few more minutes." "Don't worry Sean, it is just up ahead, another five kilometers." Ten minutes later the morning light that radiated through the trees was becoming blinding to Sean. He was almost running into camp. Kenna barked and told Sean that they were about 50 feet from the camp. "Tawnee, take the spell off NOW!" He yelled, the light very effectively blinding him, so that he tripped on his way into the camp.

Tawnee and Kali heard a bark, and then Sean yelling at Tawnee to remove the charm. They looked up to see him holding his hands over his eyes, rushing into camp, and stumbled into a rock, and tripped. Tawnee quickly cast the counter-charm, and he sighed in relief. In a moments silence Tawnee sarcastically remarks, "Gee, you really like the ground don't you?"


End file.
